Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
"Intelligent Insight"
Today we run through some of the latest charts contained in the RBA’s Monthly Chart Pack, released in early April 2018. Our first chart is of the headline inflation in advanced economies, where we see that inflation is still sitting below the typical target band of 2-3% in the USA, Euro Area and Japan. However, … Continue reading “Tales From The RBA Chart Pack – April 2018”
The RBA updated their E2 – Selected Household Ratios today to the end of December 2017. This series used data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (which were recently adjusted to remove the impact of superannuation on the data), plus some RBA supplied data. The series is updated each quarter. We will walk though these … Continue reading “Latest Household Debt Figures A Worry”
Today we discuss the Impossible Property Equation. Welcome to the Property Imperative Weekly to 10th March 2018. Watch the video or read the transcript. In this week’s review of property and finance news we start with CoreLogic who reported that last week, the combined capital cities returned a 63.6 per cent final auction clearance rate … Continue reading “The Impossible Property Equation – The Property Imperative Weekly – 10 Mar 2018”
The ABS has released the account aggregates to December 2017. Overall the trend data on an annualised basis is still pretty weak. GDP has moved up just a tad, but GDP per capital is growing at 0.9% per annum, and continues to fall. Much of the upside in to do just with population growth. But … Continue reading “Economy Grows 0.4 per Cent in December Quarter”
Norway, one of the countries mirroring the Australian mortgage debt bubble (223%) has taken steps to tighten mortgage lending further. This includes a limit of 5x gross annual income and a 5% interest rate buffer. According to Moody’s, last Wednesday, the Norwegian Financial Services Authority (FSA) proposed to the Ministry of Finance a new regulation … Continue reading “Norway Tightens Mortgage Regulation”
How far will home prices fall? Welcome to the Property Imperative weekly to 3rd March 2018. Yet another big big week in property and finance for us to review today. Watch the video or read the transcript. We start with the latest home price data from CoreLogic. Prices continue to soften. On an annual basis, … Continue reading “Going Down, Down, Down – The Property Imperative Weekly 03 Mar 2018”
Fitch Ratings has affirmed the ratings of Australia’s four major banking groups: Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ), Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), National Australia Bank Limited (NAB) and Westpac Banking Corporation (WBC). The Outlook on each bank’s Long-Term Issuer Default Rating (IDR) is Stable. The rating review focuses on the Australian-domiciled entities … Continue reading “Fitch Affirms Australia’s Four Major Banks”
There is a rising chorus demanding that APRA loosen their rules for mortgage lending in the face of slipping home prices. This despite the RBA’s recent comments about the risks in the system, especially relating to investor and interest only loans. But this is unlikely, and in fact more tightening, either by a rate rise, … Continue reading “Why More Lending Curbs Are Still Likely”
The RBA minutes for February 2018 were out today. They highlighted continued momentum in the global economy, with growth up in Australia’s major trading partners. This may put pressure on inflation here. Stronger growth in the world economy had contributed to higher commodity prices over 2017. Locally, business conditions in the September quarter had been … Continue reading “RBA Minutes Suggests No Rate Rise Anytime Soon”
Michele Bullock, Assistant Governor (Financial System), spoke at the Responsible Lending and Borrowing Summit. She downplayed the financial stress in the system and concluded “while there are some pockets of financial stress, the overall level of stress among mortgaged households remains relatively low”. Of course, our own mortgage stress surveys tells a different story, but … Continue reading “The RBA On Household Indebtedness and Mortgage Stress”